Born in Hungary. Studied linguistics and Turcology at the University of Oslo and took a Norwegian Magister Grad corresponding to Ph.D. in 1985. 1985-1989 research fellow at the University of Oslo. 1990-1998 teaching at the universities of Mainz, Mannheim and Hamburg and later research fellow at the University of Cologne. In 1998 associate professor, later professor in Turkic languages at Uppsala University. Since 2016 professor emerita.